Richard Dawkins Suffers Stroke

According to the Sydney Opera House, where he was scheduled to speak soon, Richard Dawkins suffered a small stroke last Saturday. The statement they attribute to Dawkins’ management reads in full:

On Saturday night Richard suffered a minor stroke, however he is expected in time to make a full or near full recovery. He is already at home recuperating. This unfortunately means Richard will be unable to make his planned Australian and New Zealand tour. He is very disappointed that he is unable to do so but looks forward to renewing his plans in the not too distant future.

While we here at Skepchick have been very critical of Dawkins’ recent spate of bigoted comments, we hope that he recovers quickly.

Rebecca leads a team of skeptical female activists at Skepchick.org. She travels around the world delivering entertaining talks on science, atheism, feminism, and skepticism. There is currently an asteroid orbiting the sun with her name on it. You can follow her every fascinating move on Twitter or on Google+.

John, it’s demeaning to take what you do like about someone as “them,” but file the things you don’t like as being just a the result of a medical issue. It’s also kind of illogical unless you apply it consistently to all his positions.
When you do have, for instance, a mental disorder it is obnoxious as all hell when people only take you seriously where you agree and attribute everything else to mental issues rather than engaging you.

His recent spate of unthinking opinions and such can just as easily be attributed to his being an insulated demagogue who started to believe his own good press while attributing his bad press to the bad motives of those criticising him. He certainly has enough fans telling him he is always right.

That paired with a lack of an immediate filter and an unwillingness to admit incorrectness and Occum’s razor points to his being a Oxford professor, an internet celebrity, and him being set in his ways as being far more likely a cause then any mental problems.